Profile

Christopher Robichaud is Lecturer in
Ethics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of
Government. He received his doctorate in philosophy from MIT.
His interests surround ethics, political philosophy, and
social epistemology, with a focus on examining the role of truth
and knowledge in well-functioning democracies, and on understanding
what the post-truth age of politcs is. Dr. Robichaud has been
a member of the faculty since 2006. Previously, he has taught
philosophy courses at Texas A&M University, the University of
Vermont in Burlington, and Tufts University.

Dr. Robichaud's work at the Harvard Kennedy School focuses
primarily on developing ethics pedagogy for professional
policymakers. He is the course head for the MPP core ethics
program and has led efforts to transform the ethics curriculum
into a case-based and simulation-driven enterprise. He has
overseen the recent development of several agent-focused cases
looking at Edward Snowden, Kim Davis, and Congressman
Bart Stupak, as well as new policy-focused cases about Eric
Garner and social justice, and the minimum wage
and economic justice.

Dr. Robichaud has devoted considerable energy to
creating simulations that give professionals opportunities to
explore ethical decision making in the context of practicing
leadership skills and engaging in negotiations. In addition to
appearing in the MPP program, these simulations are used in a
variety of executive education programs at the Harvard Kennedy
School, including Emerging Leaders (for which he is co-chair),
Leadership and Decision Making, Senior Executive Fellows, and
Mastering Negotiations. They have also been used in programs
at the Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, and
Harvard Graduate School of Education. New simulations he is working
on will soon appear in the Carr Center for Human Rights
Policy, the Institute of Politics, and the Harvard Law
School.

In 2015, he was the first recipient of the Innovations in Teaching
Award at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is among the faculty
who will be working on the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership
Initiative, and he regularly collaborates with the National
Preparedness Leadership Initiative, which is part of the
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Robichaud is also dedicated to bringing philosophical ideas
to a wider audience, and pursues this goal by looking at issues in
moral and political philosophy that arise in pop culture stories,
especially superhero narratives. His articles can be found in the
volumes Superheroes and Philosophy, Supervillains and
Philosophy, Batman and Philosophy, Iron Man and Philosophy, X-Men
and Philosophy, Spider-Man and Philosophy, Superman and Philosophy,
Watchmen and Philosophy, The Avengers and Philosophy, Heroes and
Philosophy, True Blood and Philosophy, Walking Dead and
Philosophy, Game of Thrones and
Philosophy and Dungeons & Dragons and
Philosophy.

He recently contributed online content to the EdX Smithsonian
course, "The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact on Pop Culture"
and has developed a new joint Smithsonian-Harvard Extension School
EdX course, "Power and Responsibility: Doing Philosophy
with Superheroes," which launches in the spring of 2017.